Long term evolution (LTE) communications systems are constructed on a framework of geographic cells that are each associated with a base station or cellular tower. Each cell is identified on the physical layer by a physical cell identifier (PCI) or cell ID, which can be one of finite set of values (e.g., 504). The cells are geographically arranged in a manner such that a single mobile device, also referred to as a user equipment (UE), should not interact with two cells with the same PCI at the same time. The PCI can be used by the mobile communications device during cell selection procedures to determine appropriate settings for signal synchronization and random access with the corresponding base station. As such, the identification of the PCI for a current cell of a mobile communications device can be an essential operation for maintaining continued cellular communications, particularly as a mobile communications device undertakes handoffs between cells.
Typically, the PCI for a current cell of the mobile communications device is determined based on communications received from an LTE base station. Under the LTE standards, the base station transmits information organized in frames across sub-carriers and time, where each frame includes information that the mobile communications device can use to support communications with the base station or prevent (or block communications with the base station). In this regard, a frame may include information in the form of a primary synchronization signal (PSS) and a secondary synchronization signal (SSS). Information encoded into the PSS and the SSS can be extracted and interpreted to determine the specific PCI for the mobile communications device's current cell.
However, in some circumstances, the mobile communications device may not receive the entire frame and may only receive a portion of the frame, and in some instances, this may happen repeatedly such that the mobile communications device doesn't receive the PSS and the SSS. Under these circumstances, the mobile communications device may undertake a blind search to identify the PCI. However, using conventional blind search approaches, the mobile communications device may need to consider, for example, 70,560 permutations before discovering the current PCI. Due to the number of permutations, the process of identifying the PCI using such approaches can be extremely time consuming and problematic when attempting to maintain continued, reliable communications between cells.